Parental fights and how the child suffers

Allow me to stay away from the obviousness of a child abuse and highlight instead on something more granular, commonplace and veiled.

Domestic violence, domestic disputes, marital altercations…you can tone down the magnitude at will, but the effect remains the same when it comes to the child trapped in bondage. While the gory effects of child abuses are seen and heard, the silent witness of a parental fight suffers immeasurably in wailing isolation.

In other words, the challenge is not in suffering but in the unseen nature of the suffering. There’s no throat tearing cry, no rod marks, no stains…only the silent soak of emotions in a quiet corner, behind the books, under the quilt. The effects reach terrifying depths.

Let’s cut short the rhetoric and take refuge in research.

According to the works of Brown and Bzostek, 2003, these hapless children swing in a dichotomy. They are either sunk in anxiety and depression or torn apart with aggressive and antisocial behavior. Anger, hostility, oppositional behavior, disobedience, poor peer, sibling, and social relationships… these are easy pickings. Unfortunate but predictable.

What is deeper and dangerous, are the cognitive and attitudinal problems.

Free will and free emotions being repeatedly squashed, fear becomes the primary emotion. Everything else becomes a reaction to fear. Fear, turns a guardian that chaperones every step of the child, physical, emotional, or mental.

And of course, younger, the worse. Devoid of the coping strategies of an adolescent, the younger child takes the heat bare bodied…with disastrous consequences.

Research suggests that repeated and unabated domestic violence thwarts the child’s neurocognitive development, leading to lower intelligence. Going by a study, exposed children had IQs that were, on average, 8 points lower than unexposed children. Data from structural equation models showed that adult domestic violence accounted for 4% of the variation, on average, in child IQ, independent of latent genetic influences.

A child is a child when it comes to suffering. Yet when the years go by, effects differ in different sexes. Although not etched in stone, studies indicate that males exposed to domestic violence as children more likely engaged in domestic violence as adults. Females on the contrary withdrew and sank in depression.

This brings us to the long term effects and consequences. More tragic.

According to The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study ( an ongoing collaborative research between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, and Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, CA), exposure to domestic violence is one of the prime adverse experiences that contribute to a plethora of frightful consequences including alcoholism, illicit drug use, suicidal attempts, unintended pregnancies, and premature deaths.

The numbers are equally frightening. As many as 13% percent of those suffering children witnessed their mothers treated violently. A whopping 23% witnessed a bloody divorce.

Let us take a clear stand on this issue.

This is not an exotic disease that flaunts and holds a chapter in the medical text book. This is neither a disorder nor a mental aberration that calls for a drug or warrants a screaming social activist. This is a household happening, a common occurrence, a human shortcoming that can end in the shatter of a wine glass, a scar in the corner of a lip or better, with a kiss and a hug. Yet this very common incident can be the cause of unseen erosion in a pristine child.

Prescriptions and counseling are irrelevant here. This is all about a firm awareness that when it comes to one’s own creations and decisions, responsibility is a fundamental human quality. Anything otherwise is as grave as an open abuse.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Author

Dr Shuvendu Sen is presently affiliated as Director of Medical Education and Associate Program Director in the Department of Internal Medicine at Raritan Bay Medical Center, New Jersey. He also serves in the Faculty of Long Island University, New York and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Jersey. A recipient of Men of Distinction Award from New York State Senate and Oscar Edwards, E. Award from American College of Physicians, Dr Sen enjoys the full spectrum of his profession ranging from clinical, research to community work. Thrice nominated for the United States Pushcart Literary Award, Dr Sen is a compulsive writer of fiction and nonfiction works, allowing his writings to touch places where medicine fails to reach.

Dr Shuvendu Sen is presently affiliated as Director of Medical Education and Associate Program Director in the Department of Internal Medicine at Raritan B. . .